News and Views

Sharon Delivers, Abbas Blathers

Editorial
New York Daily News - August 20, 2005

PLO boss Mahmoud Abbas promises the sun and the moon and the stars to the jubilant Palestinians of freshly Jewless Gaza. He promises homes, jobs, prosperity, a new airport. Perhaps Abbas will keep one or two of his fine promises, though in fact his pledge-keeping record to date is downright dismal.

Abbas has held up precious little of his end of the current road-map-for-peace bargain with Israel, for instance, not yet troubling himself to disarm and dismantle the terrorist gangs still openly prowling his streets as was long ago required of him. He has not even the grace to acknowledge the conciliatory nature of Israel's pullout from the Gaza settlements.

Yesterday, he declared that Israel withdrew because of Palestinian "sacrifices" and "patience" and "wisdom," even as the rival Hamas and Fatah groups both clamored to claim credit for relentlessly driving the Jew from the land, and setting their sights on continuing on the same bloody course.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had to swallow hard as the settlers he once championed turned on him with jeers and curses and some of his allies walked out of his government in angry protest. He had to swallow hard as he watched the terrible news footage of weeping families being uprooted from their homes, of shrieking mobs defiantly flinging sticks and stones at Israel's own soldiers come to relocate them. Now he swallows hard as Palestinians dance victory dances in their streets and Mahmoud Abbas offers them predictions that surely Israel will give up more land in time to come.

Arafat's Gaza Legacy

Editorial
USA Today - August 21, 2005

In the long and tortured process of getting Israelis and the Palestinians to live, work and prosper in side-by-side states, some moments stand out as hopeful. As the Israelis complete their evacuation of settlements in Gaza — likely today, two weeks ahead of plan — this must qualify as one.

Just the fact that the evacuation of 8,000 Israeli settlers has gone relatively smoothly, despite some heart-wrenching protests, seems a positive omen.

So, too, news reports out of Gaza suggesting that even some formerly skeptical Palestinians were taken aback when brought face to face with an unaccustomed glimpse of a less brutalized future. But seizing the opportunity requires Palestinians now to overcome a fundamental challenge: finally parting ways with their late, longtime leader Yasser Arafat. His pernicious and schizophrenic legacy still grips and defines them.

Arafat defined the Palestinians before his death last year. First, as head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, through hijackings and terrorism. Then, as peacemaking signatory of the 1993 Oslo peace accords. Oslo envisaged the Palestinians gradually creating and negotiating a state.

But the grizzled Palestinian icon lacked the special kind of courage that pragmatic peace requires. His government, the Palestinian Authority, was riddled with corruption and nepotism. Sneakily, even as he promised peace, he encouraged both terrorism and the goal of destroying Israel.

Palestinians can't have it both ways. They have to choose between Arafat's two sides, and visions. In practice, that means between new leader Mahmoud Abbas, who wants negotiated peace, and is doing and saying the right things. And Hamas hard-liners and other terrorists who are saying Israel's pullout from Gaza proves the value of violence.

Abbas' failure so far to establish his authority is in large part because of what Arafat sowed. The Palestinians now have help from the Egyptians, United States, United Nations and others to prove they can run a viable territory — the first step to a broader settlement. Helpful, all. If they can first break Arafat's lingering hold.

Israel's Courage

Editorial
The Telegraph (UK) - August 21, 2005

It is shocking that, in the very week in which Israel began the evacuation of 8,500 Jewish settlers, the United Nations Development Programme was revealed to be funding crass anti-Israeli propaganda. As hundreds of Jewish families left their homes, UN money has been spent on Palestinian T-shirts and bumper stickers bearing such slogans as: "Today Gaza and tomorrow the West Bank and Jerusalem."

There could be no better illustration of the ingratitude which has been shown to Israel in one of the most difficult weeks in its history. Only 60 years ago, the Jewish people faced complete extinction. The linkage between land and racial survival is therefore very strong in the Jewish mind. For Israeli soldiers to oversee the (mostly peaceful) departure of these settlers is an act of extraordinary courage. No less praise is due to Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister, who has defied his own party in launching the "disengagement" programme.

To the liberal-Left, Israel's only competitor as the most wicked state in the world is, of course, America. Yet the evacuation of Gaza would have been much harder without the Iraq War. By removing Saddam Hussein, and ending once and for all the Iraqi tyrant's ambitions to terrorise the region with WMD, President Bush has shown the Israeli people that America takes their security very seriously. Israel knows that America, in supporting the evacuation of Gaza, is not abandoning them.

The Palestinians - and their cheerleaders around the world - should be under no illusions about the necessary next steps. Israel has made a historic concession, in the interests of peace and prosperity. But those who think that a man of Sharon's character and history is now a soft touch are sorely mistaken.

The evacuation of Gaza is not an act of weakness, but precisely the opposite. Mr Sharon has taken this step because he feels it is safe to do so. What he now - quite reasonably - expects is reciprocation from the Palestinians. Their President, Mahmoud Abbas, must take control of the vacated territories and crack down mercilessly on terrorism. The Israelis have behaved with under-appreciated nobility of purpose. The ball is now emphatically in the Palestinian court.

Settling In For A Long Wait

by Charles Krauthammer
Washington Post - August 19, 2005

The Israeli abandonment of Gaza is a withdrawal of despair. Unlike the Oslo concessions of 1993, there is not even the pretense of getting anything in return from the Palestinians. Nonetheless, unilateralism is both correct and necessary. Israel has no peace partner -- Mahmoud Abbas has nothing to offer and has offered nothing -- and in the absence of a partner, there is only one logical policy: Rationalize your defensive lines and prepare for a long wait.

Gaza was simply a bridge too far: settlements too far-flung and small to justify the huge psychological and material cost of defending them. Pulling out of Gaza leaves behind the first truly independent Palestinian state -- uncontrolled and highly militant, but one from which Israel is fenced off.

If Israel can complete its West Bank fence, it will have established a stable equilibrium and essentially abolished terrorism as a regular and reliable means of attack -- i.e., as a usable strategic weapon. That will leave the Palestinians a stark choice: Remain in their state of miserable militancy with no prospects of victory or finally accept the Jewish state and make a deal.

Palestinians must put down violence, shut up rhetoric

Editorial
Chicago Sun Times - August 19, 2005

Israel's historic disengagement from the Gaza Strip throws down a challenge to the Palestinians. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has succeeded in forcing the settlers, often labeled the most extreme element of Israeli society, to bend to his will for the good of their fellow countrymen. Now the question becomes: Can the Palestinian leadership do the same? Can Mahmoud Abbas finally tame and disarm the terrorists to achieve a law-abiding and peaceful Palestinian society?

Funding of Palestinian Propaganda By U.N. 'Unacceptable,' Bolton Says

by Jacob Gershman
New York Sun - August 18, 2005

The United Nations' funding of a Palestinian Arab propaganda campaign timed to coincide with Israel's pullout from the Gaza Strip has increased tensions between the U.N. and American officials.

America's newly installed ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, labeled "inappropriate and unacceptable" the United Nations Development Program financing of materials bearing the slogan "Today Gaza, Tomorrow the West Bank and Jerusalem."

Mr. Bolton said yesterday that the UNDP had failed to explain why it funneled money to the Palestinian Authority to back the production of banners, bumper stickers, mugs, and T-shirts bearing the provocative slogan as well as UNDP logos.

Responding to angry reactions from Jewish and Israeli leaders, UNDP officials yesterday said financial support from the agency was intended to help the Palestinian Authority communicate with Palestinian Arabs during Israel's evacuation of Jewish settlers from Gaza.

Hamastan? Gaza pullout is worth the risk

"The Gaza settlements were simply not sustainable. Approximately 8,500 Jews could not live safely among 1.3 million Arabs. That may be a sad commentary on the Arabs, considering that a million Arabs live safely among 5 million Jews in Israel, but that's life."
by Max Boot
Los Angeles Times - August 17, 2005

For almost 40 years, the conceit has been growing around the world that Palestinian terrorism can be explained and even excused by Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This was always a dubious proposition in light of the fact that Arabs have been fighting Israel since its formation in 1948, not since its conquest of those territories in 1967. The Palestine Liberation Organization began its attacks while the West Bank was still part of Jordan and Gaza was part of Egypt.

Now the Israeli decision to remove its settlers from the Gaza Strip and a small portion of the West Bank should provide a further test of the belief that Jewish settlements are the root cause of this conflict. If this were in fact the case, you would expect that a partial pullout would lead to at least a partial melting of Arab hostility toward the Jews. Maybe this will occur; and maybe the Gaza Strip will overnight become as peaceful as Switzerland.

The early signs are not good — literally. Gaza City is decked out with green Hamas banners proclaiming, "Resistance wins, so let's go on." The banners from the supposedly more restrained Palestinian Authority reveal the same mind-set: "Gaza today, the West Bank and Jerusalem tomorrow." Far from being sated by Israeli concessions, the Palestinians are emboldened to demand more. Many will not be satisfied until — in the words of a 15-year-old would-be suicide bomber quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle — there are no more "Jews on this world."

Now It's Up To The Palestinians

by Yossi Klein Halevi
Los Angeles Times - August 17, 2005

Even as Israel's anguished self-confrontation unfolds in Gaza with the army's dismantling of two dozen thriving towns and agricultural villages, Palestinian leaders are demanding more. This withdrawal is only the beginning, they promise their celebrating followers. Today Gaza, tomorrow the West Bank and Jerusalem.

Yet whether Israel ultimately cedes all that the Palestinians say they want will depend on the Palestinians themselves. A wary Israeli public needs to be convinced that the Palestinians want to build their own state more than they want to destroy the Jewish state. Gaza is the test case for that open question.

In the coming months, a Palestine taking sovereign control of territory must begin confronting the terrorist regime that has grown in Gaza. It must wrest foreign aid away from militias and private bank accounts and put it into schools and hospitals. Its leaders must dismantle the refugee camps that have been a permanent condition of Gaza life and resettle their residents in decent housing. Finally, it must temper the culture of hatred against the Jewish people that has become routine in Gaza's schools, mosques and media.

If the Palestinian leadership initiates that difficult process of physical and spiritual renewal, then the Israeli majority — which craves peace far more than biblical borders — will support negotiations over extending Palestinian sovereignty. And even if, as the Palestinians suspect, Ariel Sharon intends Gaza to be his first and last withdrawal, the Israeli majority will insist on substantive talks. No Israeli leader can survive politically if the electorate perceives him to be blocking a chance for peace.

Abbas and the Rejectionists

Editorial
Washington Times -August 15, 2005

As Israel begins the brutally painful process of uprooting all of its citizens from the Gaza settlements, the ball is in the court of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who must decide whether he is prepared to confront the terrorists operating there or emulate Yasser Arafat's approach of facilitating terror.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has broken with many of his staunchest political supporters on the Israeli right and staked his political future on the belief that Mr. Abbas is prepared to break with the dark legacy of Mr. Arafat and take decisive action to end the terrorist stranglehold over Gaza's 1.3 million Palestinians. Now its time for Mr. Abbas to go beyond rhetoric and deal severely with the terrorists who operate out of PA territory.

The Fate of Palestine is in the Hands of One Man

"Ariel Sharon has shown that progress does not require a handshake on the White House lawn - it requires courage to face down your own zealots. The sequel to the drama must be reciprocal action by Mr Abbas."
Editorial
The Telegraph (UK) - August 16, 2005

The world is too used to violence in the Middle East to be much surprised at the scenes from Gaza yesterday. Yet the sight of Israeli citizens burning tyres in the path of Israeli soldiers alerts us to a real change in the arrangements of power in that devastated region.

The protests were largely ritual in nature, got up to make a point of principle rather than actively to resist removal. Real trouble will almost certainly come later in the week, when forced eviction of settlers begins. And there will be further grief when the evacuated houses are demolished by Israeli forces in order to prevent Palestinians triumphantly occupying the empty homes.

But not every abandoned building will be destroyed. We can expect a race between the forces of the Palestinian Authority and those of Hamas to erect their flags on the public buildings of Gaza. And that internecine battle is more important to the future of the region than the sad conflict between the Israeli settlers and the Israeli government.

The Palestinian Authority is deeply compromised, both by political and financial corruption and by evident links with terrorism; it also seeks a strategic outcome (Israel's return to its 1949 boundaries) which is unacceptable in the eyes of the world. But, for all that, the PA remains the representative authority of the Palestinian people and a signatory to international accords recognising the right of Israel to exist. Hamas, on the other hand, actively seeks the disappearance of Israel from the face of the earth.